17 more kids drown in sea

At least 17 children drowned when three boats sank en route from Turkey to Greece, officials said Friday, the latest tragedy to strike migrants braving wintry seas to seek asylum in Europe.

Nine adults also lost their lives when the boats went down, with the drownings once again highlighting the human cost as Europe struggles with its worst migrant crisis since World War II.

Although rescue officials in Greece and Turkey managed to pull another 157 people from the water, such drownings have become an almost daily occurrence as thousands of people brave high seas and wintry weather to make the crossing on flimsy, overloaded boats.

Syrian Kurdish refugees reacts after rescued Greek fishermen come to rescue them. Photo: AFP

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras yesterday said he felt "shame" over "the inability of Europe to deal effectively with this human drama".

Speaking in parliament, the left-wing Syriza leader condemned the "level of debate at a senior level, where one is passing the buck to the other" in the EU.

"Crocodile tears are being shed for the dead children on the shores of the Aegean, because dead children always arouse sorrow, but what about the children that are alive who come in thousands and are packed on the refugee trail? Nobody cares for them," Tsipras added.

Most of the deaths occurred off the Greek islands of Kalymnos and Rhodes, where 22 people drowned, among them 13 children, when two boats went down overnight, port officials said yesterday.

In total, 138 people were rescued from the two boats, with the coastguard continuing its search for survivors.

To the north, an AFP correspondent witnessed another boat foundering off the island of Lesbos, with a group of desperate people perched on the roof screaming for help.

Another four young children, all of them Syrian, drowned when their flimsy boat heading for Lesbos capsized in bad weather, although the Turkish coastguard rescued 19 other people, the Dogan news agency reported.

The latest deaths came after 17 people drowned off Lesbos and Samos on Wednesday, 11 of them children.

Despite worsening weather at the onset of winter that has made the already hazardous sea voyage even more dangerous, a record 48,000 refugees and migrants arrived last week in Greece, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.